We are continuing our sermon
series on the Minor Prophets, “Who Are These Guys?” Today, we look at the book of Habakkuk.
You’ve probably noticed, as we go through these minor
prophets, that I keep saying, “We really don’t know much about this
prophet.” Today we take that to the max,
because we pretty much know nothing about Habakkuk. We really don’t even know how to pronounce
his name. Some people pronounce in
HaBAKKuk while others pronounce it HABakkuk.
I remember when I was in seminary, I asked my professor what the correct
pronunciation was, thinking he would surely know, and he told me, “We really
have no idea.” In fact, we don’t even
know whether that was his real name.
Some think it may have been a nickname that comes from an Akkadian word
“hambakuku”, which is the name of a plant.
Why he’d have had a nickname that was the name of a plant is not
explained.
Anyway, HaBAKKuk—or HABakkuk—delivered his message around
700 B. C., people think. Its form is
different from the other minor prophets we’ve looked at, in that it’s not a
message delivered to a certain group.
Instead, it’s a conversation between Habakkuk and God. We got a little of that conversation in our
Bible reading for today.
Habakkuk starts the conversation off with a
question. It’s a question that people
have struggled with for thousands of years, ever since we became people,
really. Habakkuk looks at the world, and
he sees all kinds of things going wrong.
He says, “Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and
conflict abounds…the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that
justice is perverted.”
And then he asks the question. It’s basically the same question almost all
of us have asked at one time or another.
“Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?...Your eyes are too pure to look on
evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow
up those more righteous than themselves?”
Almost all of us have asked similar questions. The worse things get, the more we ask
them. Sometimes we ask them in a world
context. “Why are Christians
persecuted? Why is there so much poverty
in the world?” Sometimes we ask them in
a national context. “Why are there
things like school shootings and other violence? Why is there so much divorce and so many
social problems?” Sometimes we ask them
in a local context. “Why are we in such
a drought? Why is there so much
crime?” Sometimes we ask them in a very
personal context. “Why can I not find a
job? How am I going to pay my
bills? Will I ever find someone to love
me?”
Those are not all the same questions Habakkuk asked, of
course, and I’m not trying to say that they are. The way they’re all similar, though, is that
they all deal with situations we think are not right. They deal with situations where we don’t
think things should be the way they are, and we don’t understand why things are
the way they are. And we don’t feel like
we can do anything about them. And so we
cry out to God. We say, God, you see the
situation here. You cannot like it. There’s no way you can approve of what’s
going on. So why don’t you do something
about it?
There are natural questions to ask. And I want to emphasize that there’s nothing
wrong with asking them. In a way, they
show our faith. If our faith was weak,
we’d give up on God. But instead, by
asking these questions, we’re really running toward God. We’re saying, God, I know you’re there. I know you’re all powerful. I know you’re good. I know you can do something about this. But you’re not. Why not?
I still believe in you. I just
don’t understand.
That’s the situation Habakkuk was in. He did not lose his faith. He says, “Lord, are you not from
everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you
will never die.” Habakkuk never doubts
that God is there.
And in fact, Habakkuk’s faith is even stronger than
that. He not only has faith that God is
there. He fully expects God to give him
an answer. He says, “I will stand at my
watch and station myself on the ramparts.
I will look to see what he will say to me.”
And God gives him an answer. Kind of, anyway. God says, “the revelation awaits an appointed
time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will
certainly come.” In other words, God
says, things are going to be okay. I’m
going to act. It’s just not time
yet. The time will come. Wait for it.
Be patient. It will come. I’ll take care of everything when the time is
right.
That answer satisfies Habakkuk. Does it satisfy you?
It’s hard. It’s
hard to find that answer satisfying. And
it’s understandable why. It’s not just
that we tend to be impatient people, although that’s part of it. But it’s also because we see all kinds of
people who are hurting right now. We see
all kinds of people who are suffering right now. Sometimes it’s people who are very close to
us who are suffering. In fact, sometimes
it’s us, ourselves, who are suffering and in pain.
When we’re hurting, when we’re suffering, or when people
who are very important to us are hurting and suffering, it’s pretty hard to be
patient. It’s pretty hard to hear God say
“wait”. It’s pretty hard to hear God say
don’t worry, I’ll take care of it eventually, when the time is right. We think right now is when the time is right. We think, “I don’t want to hear about how
things’ll be all right in some great glorious day that I may never live to
see. I want God to take some action
now!”
But so often, that’s not how it works. So often, God does not take action now. Sometimes God does, of course. I’ve had prayers answered in a very short
period of time. Maybe you have, too. It’s really cool when that does happen. It’s an awesome feeling when we pray for
something and then just a little while later we see God answer our prayer. It can really strengthen our faith to have
that happen.
But so often, God says to us what God said to
Habakkuk. God says that God is going to
do something, but God is waiting for the “appointed time.” God says, “Wait for it. It will surely come.”
How do we handle that?
I think one really good way to handle it is to do what Habakkuk
did. You and I need to stand watch. We need to look to see what God will say to
us. And we need to look to see what God
will do.
I think that’s really important, because sometimes, God’s
answer does not come all at once.
Sometimes, God’s answer comes a little bit at a time. It comes at various times and in various
ways. And if we’re not standing watch,
if we’re not looking for God’s answer, we may not see it. We’ll think God is not answering our prayer
when in fact God did give us an answer, we just were not looking for it and we
missed it.
I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that I believe
God is doing something special here in the Wheatland Parish. I still believe that. I still don’t know exactly what it is. But I see signs of it. I see it in the tremendous growth in our
Faith Builders children’s program. I see
it in the beautiful addition to the church.
I see it in the willingness of the volunteers who helped at the Hunter’s
Breakfast last week and are helping at the Harvest Festival this week. I see it in the tremendous faith and loyalty
of so many people here. There are lots
of other ways I see it, too. There are
so many ways in which we can see God doing something special here. But we have to look for them in order to see
them.
There’s one other way that I see this, too. I see it in the number of people in our
community who are not going to church anywhere.
I see it in the number of kids in our community who are not going to
church school anywhere. And the reason I
say that I can see God doing something special through those people is that
Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all nations. Too many times we think of that as meaning we
should be missionaries and go half-way around the world. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we don’t
have to do that. We can be missionaries
right here, in our own community. These
people who are not going to church anywhere, and these kids who are not going
to church school anywhere, are some of the people we’ve been praying for in our
prayer emphases.
If we keep
praying, if we stay faithful to God, if we do our best and trust God, God is
going to answer our prayers. The answer
may not come when we wanted it to. The
answer may not come the way we wanted it to.
But it will surely come. It’s
already coming. God is already answering
our prayers. We just need to keep watch
and look for the answer, so we can see it when it starts to come.
It’s hard to
wait. The worse things seem to be, the
harder it is. But if we stay faithful,
if we do our best, and if we keep watch, we’ll see that God hears our prayers,
that God is still in control, and that God will respond. God will take care of everything when the
time is right. And when God does, it’s
going to be awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment